I have recently found myself sharing again a link from Nov 2017 about some of the prototypes back then, so it become apparent I need to provide an update on the tech stack being used now within my project, without the need to dive into the code itself.
The stack is now Vue.js with Vuex connected to CouchDB via PouchDB. The resulting information is rendered in html using a number of components and standard SVG elements to create interactive views. The use of additional plug ins has been removed unless necessary, this helps keep the project inline with the GNU Licence.
The biggest change is to move to CouchDB and PouchDB this has replaced my previous use of deepstreamHub which initially looked like a great open source alternative to Google’s Firebase however the deepstreamHub which was a cloud instance of deepstream stopped working and hasn’t been updated in a long time. I made a number of attempts to run my own deepstream, which was one of the reasons for picking the platform, the open source server tech, but trying to get this running in the same way the hub version worked proved to be fruitless.
It become very apparent this was a major block in the project. I reached out to a developer friend of mine to see what else he could also locate out there, we chatted over the general project aims, realtime nature, the vue.js json style structure and had been useful within firebase, we also discussed the ownership of the data so he went off to think about what could provide the underpinning structure I wanted.
He came back with the suggestion of CouchDB and subsequently PouchDB which would also answer my need for local storage and offline capabilities. After making the changes to the project to use PouchDB and CouchDB I also was pointed towards an interesting article from ink and switch looking at the development of local first software and the concept of owning your data, in spite of the cloud, which chimed very much with my research 1 and although they seemed to rule out CouchDB, due to some concerns over conflict resolution and its ability to do realtime, I have not hit those kinds of issue and have realtime collaborative capabilities working.
A little gif showcasing nodenogg.in’s use of realtime collaboration.
